January 23, 2008

Rabbi David Berger: Shmuley Boteach "Wrong"

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach wrote a column for the Jerusalem Post asserting that it is wrong to deny conversion to Judaism for non-Jews who are Chabad messianists. These messiansts do not believe the Rebbe is God, Botach says, and they keep mitzvot – therefore they should be considered Jews, not heretics and their conversions should be valid.

Today, Rabbi David Berger responded to Shmuley Boteach's argument.

Are either of these men is correct. If so, which one?

My answer may surprise you. Read it after the jump in the extended post…

The Lubavitcher Rebbe was the Jewish colossus of the 20th century and would rank on any serious list of the most influential Jewish figures of all time. Uniquely capable of inspiring thousands to move their families to the ends of the earth to reconnect Jews with their tradition, he used love rather than fear, joy rather than guilt, and inspiration rather than criticism to breathe life into a moribund nation.

The shock of losing a man of such singular distinction led some in Chabad to mistakenly lend him immortality not by furthering his vision of Judaism as the light of the world, but by declaring him to be the long-awaited Messiah.

To be sure, the only Messiah recognized by the Jewish faith is he who fulfills the prophecies of gathering in all Jewish exiles, rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem, and establishing a permanent era of peace on earth.

Maimonides establishes beyond the shadow of any halachic doubt that a great Jewish leader who causes the Jewish people to reembrace their tradition and fights God's moral battles - feats the Rebbe accomplished without rival - has the possibility of being the Messiah. But if he dies without having fulfilled the relevant prophecies, he is seen as an inspired leader who brought the world closer to redemption, but is not the redeemer himself.

But as Edward Kennedy said of his brother Robert in 1968, "[He] need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life."

I HAVE often told my messianic Lubavitch brethren that by insisting on the Rebbe's messiahship they diminish rather than aggrandize him since they give the misleading impression to people outside Chabad that the Rebbe was more interested in promoting a cult of personality than in advancing the collective Jewish polity.

Indeed, what made the Rebbe great was that he was a mortal man. Like us, he was fallible. Like us, he wrestled with the limitations of his humanity. But, unlike us, he transcended the human predilection to selfishness and led a life of staggering altruism.

Unlike Christianity, which insists that Jesus was either divine or an impostor, we Jews have no patience for god-men, so distant as they are from our struggles and tribulations. What really turns us on is imperfect people who wrestle with their nature and contribute vastly to the perfection of the world.

Had the Rebbe been more than just human, his greatness would have been intuitive and consequently unimpressive.

STILL, I disagree utterly with those unkind critics who warn that the Rebbe-as-Messiah phenomenon is proof that some in Chabad will ultimately write themselves out of Judaism. Indeed, to compare Chabad messianists with Christians is libelous, preposterous, and ignorant.

It was not the early Jerusalem Church's insistence on the messiahship of Jesus that broke them off from normative Judaism, but rather Paul's later abrogation of the law. Early Christians did not believe in the divinity of Jesus, only that he was the long-promised Messiah. There was nothing inherently heretical about this belief, even if it was not normative.

Chabad is a movement, nearly every member of which is passionately devoted to the most minute observance of Jewish law. This is often especially true of Chabad messianists. I debate them vigorously. But I do not doubt for a moment their immovable commitment to every iota of Jewish tradition.

For the most part, they are Jews with a deep spiritual orientation who desperately wish to see the world cured of its ills. Their mistake is to allow that yearning to spill over into desperation and to ignore the 3,000 -year Jewish insistence that the Messiah be a living man.

Indeed, most Lubavitchers I know who insist the Rebbe is the Messiah do so more out of a visceral, emotional attachment to the Rebbe's memory than out of any deep-seated halachic conviction. For them, making the Rebbe the Messiah becomes a loving honorific. Part of a hassid's affection for his rebbe is to believe that his righteousness alone will redeem the world. The fact that he has already passed away becomes an inconvenient technicality which, while it cannot be justified, can be charitably understood.

THE NEWS, therefore, that a leading rabbinical court in Israel refused to allow into Judaism a Chabad-educated conversion candidate because he believed the Rebbe is the Messiah is deeply troubling and constitutes an act of serious contempt for a non-Jew who has made sacrifices to ally himself with the Jewish people. Comparing this with a Jew-for-Jesus wishing to convert is preposterous, given that Jews-for-Jesus believe in the divinity of Christ (which no one in Chabad would ever assert about the Rebbe) as well as the irrelevance of the Torah to modern times.

In 1992, just before the Rebbe's 90th birthday, hundreds of his worldwide emissaries gathered in Brooklyn to discuss how the milestone should be observed. Some said that every emissary should bring 90 constituents to meet the Rebbe, another that 90 new Jewish day schools be opened. I suggested that we should endeavor to have the Rebbe awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

After all, the Dalai Lama, nominal head of Tibet, with only 2.6 million citizens, had won, as did Mother Theresa, in her simple white habit, for her faith-inspired humanitarian work.

Ultimately, no steps were taken to have the Rebbe nominated, a missed opportunity if there ever was one, given that few world personalities had more eloquently articulated man's capacity for ushering in an era of global peace.

But this would be a healthy replacement for the prodigious energies of the Chabad messianists. Make the Rebbe and his teachings known to a non-Jewish world, who have scarcely heard of him but who would benefit enormously from his light.

The writer's new daily national radio show begins airing on 'Oprah and Friends' on January 28 on XM Channel 156. His new book The Broken American Male and How to Fix Him will be launched this week.

In his Post column "Chabad Messianists: Wrong, but still Jews" (January 20), Shmuley Boteach asserts that the refusal of a rabbinic court in Israel to accept a convert who believes that the Lubavitcher Rebbe is the Messiah is an "act of serious contempt for a non-Jew who has made sacrifices to ally himself with the Jewish people."

On the contrary, to accept such a convert would be an act of serious contempt for generations of Jews who gave their lives to preserve the theological boundaries between Judaism and Christianity.

Rabbi Boteach maintains that only two of the differences between Judaism and Christianity really count: the belief in the divinity of the Messiah and failure to observe the Torah. Since Lubavitch hassidim observe the Torah, and "no one in Chabad would ever assert" that the Rebbe is divine, the belief in a Messiah who announces that redemption will come in his generation, dies in an unredeemed world, and is then resurrected for his second coming does not disqualify the believer as a fully Orthodox Jew or, if he is not yet Jewish, as a prospective convert.

FOR MORE than a thousand years, Jews have told Christian missionaries that the Jewish denial of a second coming is a bright line dividing the religions. From Nahmanides to R. Hayyim of Brisk, from R. Yom Tov Lipmann Muelhausen to R. Judah Aryeh da Modena, the Messiahship of Jesus was ruled out of court on the explicit grounds that Judaism affirms that once the Messiah begins his redemptive career, he completes it during his lifetime.

In the words of R. Pinhas Elijah Hurwitz of Vilna (1765-1821) in his Sefer ha-Berit, "We are obligated to believe that a Jewish man will come who will begin to save Israel and will complete the salvation of Israel in that generation. One who completes the task is the one, while one who does not complete it in that generation but dies or is broken or is taken captive [Exodus 22:9] is not the one and was not sent by God." Not only does this position stand at the core of the historic Jewish defense against the Christian mission; it served as the criterion for the uncompromising rejection of movements of false messianism after the death of the messianic figure.

THE ISSUE before us is not whether belief in a second coming, which shatters the parameters of the messianic faith of Judaism, is outright heresy. Not every non-heretic has a presumptive right to be welcomed into the Jewish people. To allow a non-Jew to cross the line into Judaism while affirming a belief that Jews through the ages have seen as a defining characteristic of a rival faith is to declare that that belief, while probably incorrect, is acceptable in Judaism. It is to declare that on a matter of fundamental principle, our martyred ancestors were wrong, and their Christian murderers were right.

But this is not the end of it. Tragically, Rabbi Boteach's assertion that no one in Chabad would ever assert that the Rebbe is divine is also misguided. Without engaging in theological niceties, I present quotations from statements by religious mentors in respected Lubavitch institutions in both Israel and the United States.

1. Rabbi Levi Yitzhak Ginsberg (written after the Rebbe's passing): Yes, the Rebbe's body is composed of flesh and blood, but as far as he's concerned he is not compelled or limited by anything - not by physical limitations nor by spiritual limitations. He "is what he is." [This refers, of course, to the divine name in Exodus 3:14.] Even as he is enclothed in a physical body, he remains limited by nothing whatsoever and he has the ability to do everything and be everything in an unlimited manner.

2. Rabbi Levi Yitzhak Ginsberg (written after the Rebbe's passing): The Rebbe is the "master of the house" with respect to all that happens to him and all that happens in the world. Without his agreement no event can take place, and if it is his will, he can bring about anything, "and who can tell him what to do" ….In him the Holy One Blessed be He rests in all His force just as He is (because of his complete self-nullification to God, so that this becomes his entire essence).

3. Rabbi Sholom Charitonow, asserting that the Rebbe manifests the Essence of the unlimited God and explaining why it follows that even his physical body remains alive in the deepest sense: Interruptions can only apply where there are borders and limitations (as opposed to Essence), which have been utilized to a maximum, making it necessary to proceed to new borders and limitations. Concerning the Essence, however, in relation to which borders and forms do not conceal at all - on the contrary, they actually become united with the Essence - all causes of interruption do not apply. In other words - not only is the interruption unnecessary, it is in fact impossible. This can apply to something which has a form (whether of a physical or a spiritual nature); it cannot, however, apply to something that is eternal by nature, having no form whatsoever.

4. Rabbi Yashovam Segal (written in 2003):

We Lubavitch hassidim believe that the House of our Rabbi in Babylonia [i.e., 770 Eastern Parkway] is the Temple, and the Rebbe is the Ark of the Covenant standing on the Foundation Rock in which [referring to the Rebbe/ark] the divine Being and Essence rests.

He goes on to say that the prohibition against associating God with something else (shittuf), which is the classic category used in Judaism to analyze the status of Christianity, applies to the sun and moon but not to the supremely righteous, who are one with God.

THERE IS much more, but these quotations will have to suffice. If a published report that the prospective convert in question believes that the Rebbe is physically alive is correct, then he belongs to a group suffused with this theology. Thus, it is more than likely that to accept him into the Jewish people is to erase even a line that Rabbi Boteach wishes to preserve.

I do not, however, want to "define deviancy down." Belief in posthumous false messianism is sufficient to disqualify a potential convert. The decision of this rabbinic court provides a small glimmer of hope that Orthodox Judaism will refuse to legitimate the historic betrayal of Judaism that has unfolded in the last decade and a half. I hope against hope that the decision will be allowed to stand.

The writer is professor of Jewish history at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Yeshiva University and author of The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference.

Shmuley Boteach writes:

It was not the early Jerusalem Church's insistence on the messiahship
of Jesus that broke them off from normative Judaism, but rather Paul's
later abrogation of the law. Early Christians did not believe in the
divinity of Jesus, only that he was the long-promised Messiah. There
was nothing inherently heretical about this belief, even if it was not
normative.

This is false.

The sages of the Mishna devised ways to separate between normative Jews and Jesus Jews. They added a blessing to the Amida prayer cursing Early Christians and they ordered Jews to stop doing things in prayer that Early Christians did, like kneeling and prostrating. They took every step they could to make and enforce this separation.

Indeed, there is an old rabbinic legend claiming Paul himself was sent by the rabbis to separate Early Christians from Jews. That, the legend claims, is why gentile Early Christians under Paul's influence were told not to keep mitzvot.

Rabbi Berger for his part continues to focus on medieval and later Jewish responses to Christian missionaries while missing the most salient point of all.

The first time a dead messiah with semi-divinity was adored by Jews, rabbis went to great lengths to distance normative Jews from what the rabbis clearly considered heresy.

That is what must happen now. We have no other halakhic or theological choice because we have a clear historical and legal precedent to follow and no opposing opinions to call on.

So both rabbis are wrong.

Boteach is wrong for all the usual Shmuley reasons. David Berger is wrong because he insists on remaining anchored primarily in the Middle Ages and in later responses to Christianity while all but completely ignoring the older, stronger, more historically potent precedent.

If you want hear a Chabad messianist debate a left wing MO rabbi, click here for the mp3s. My comments on that debate, including proof the Chabad messianist is ignorant (willfully or otherwise) of even the most simple halakhot of this issue, are posted here.

Comments

Rabbi David Berger: Shmuley Boteach "Wrong"

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach wrote a column for the Jerusalem Post asserting that it is wrong to deny conversion to Judaism for non-Jews who are Chabad messianists. These messiansts do not believe the Rebbe is God, Botach says, and they keep mitzvot – therefore they should be considered Jews, not heretics and their conversions should be valid.

Today, Rabbi David Berger responded to Shmuley Boteach's argument.

Are either of these men is correct. If so, which one?

My answer may surprise you. Read it after the jump in the extended post…

Failed messiah was established and run in 2004 by Mr. Shmarya (Scott)Rosenberg. The site was acquired by Diversified Holdings, Feb 2016. .We thank Mr. Rosenberg for his efforts on behalf of the Jewish Community.

Comment Rules

No anonymous comments.

Use only one name or alias and stick with that.

Do not use anyone else's name or alias.

Do not sockpuppet.

Try to argue using facts and logic.

Do not lie.

No name-calling, please.

Do not post entire articles or long article excerpts.

***Violation of these rules may lead to the violator's comments being edited or his future comments being banned.***